POSTED BY GEORGE PRENTICE
Organizers of a controversial Idaho predator derby—which was barred from Bureau of Land Management property in November—are going forward with their hunt, scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 1-Sunday, Jan. 4 and limited to U.S. Forest Service and private land near Salmon.
The event, sponsored by Idaho for Wildlife, is dubbed “Predator Hunting Contest and Fur Rendezvous” and has special prizes for most wolves killed ($1,000), most coyotes killed ($1,000), and separate prizes for hunters 10 to 13 years old and 14 to 17 years old. Organizers are not charging an entry fee but are taking donations at registration, which begins 6 p.m., Jan. 1 at the Steel and Ranch store in Salmon.
Organizers promise that licensed fur buyers will be on site “to pay $$$ for your furs (whole or skinned).”
According to its website, Idaho for Wildlife is “dedicated to the preservation of Idaho’s wildlife,” and “to fight against all legal and legislative attempts by the animal rights and anti-gun organizations who are attempting to take away our rights and freedoms under the Constitution of the United States of America.”
BLM canceled the 2015 wolf-killing “derby” on 3 million acres of public land near Salmon in response to a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, Advocates for the West, the Western Watersheds Project and Project Coyote. During the inaugural event in December 2013, no wolves were killed, but 21 coyotes died during the hunt. The $1,000 prize for killing the largest wolf went unclaimed.